The Things We Lost
by lokilette
Summary: The last thing Gellert remembers is dying, but he wakes to find himself young again, trapped in Godric's Hollow with Albus. According to Death, the only way out is through confessing his greatest mistake, but Gellert finds that's easier said than done. Written for QLFC round 11.


**Author's Note:** This is a gift fic for Arken47. Happy birthday! I was asked to write a story about Albus and Gellert meeting up again in the afterlife. Sorry if this is a bit crap. Ended up hitting block after block writing it. My muse seems to have taken a vacation. Thanks to Nightmare Prince for the beta.

 **Word Count:** 3,000

* * *

The last thing Gellert remembered was the pounding of his heart in his ears. _Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub...dub. Lub...dub...lub..._

When he woke, it was to a world engulfed by fog. He was alive—or at least he _felt_ alive, which was a good start.

Gellert pressed his palm into the dirt beneath him, pushing himself up, and the fog shifted with his movement as if bowing to his will. As he began to make his way forward, it started to give way to large, blocky shadows that slowly revealed themselves as buildings.

Everything looked familiar somehow, as if he was under the lull of deja vu, but he couldn't place exactly why. It wasn't until he neared an old church at the end of the road that Gellert remembered. He had been there before—a long time ago, when he was young.

As he glanced down, Gellert realized the wrinkles were gone from his hands. In searching his neck, he found a tangle of curls cascading down his shoulders and around his ears. He was young again, which was a bit disconcerting. There wasn't anything that he missed from his youth.

"You've finally come," said a voice in the fog, causing Gellert to start. He instinctively reached for his wand only to remember he had none. "I was beginning to think that maybe you stood me up."

Gellert's heartbeat pounded in his ears as he recognized the voice. If there was one thing he had learned in his life, it was that someone—be it Fate or some other imagined being—loved to prove him wrong. This time was no different. There _was_ one thing, just one, that he coveted from his youth—and the voice belonged to that man.

Gellert looked toward the sound, squinting as if that would usher away the fog that separated them. As he moved forward, it gradually gave way to shoulder-length auburn hair and fierce blue eyes.

"Wh-where are we?" Gellert was unable to stop the slight tremor of incredulity that wavered his voice.

"You don't remember this place?" Albus raised his eyebrows as he motioned across the dirt road from them.

Gellert turned just as tombstones began popping through the dissipating fog one by one as if the ground were sprouting teeth.

"Is this...Godric's Hollow?" Gellert asked, turning back to Albus.

"The one and only. Well, that's not technically true since this is Limbo, so I suppose that makes this the second Godric's Hollow."

"That's two too many."

Albus motioned to the empty space on the bench next to him, and Gellert hesitated at the invitation. Not only did he not require permission to sit, standing had been intentional. He had escaped this godforsaken hellhole once already in his youth, and sitting seemed like he was giving his permission to remain there. Despite his misgivings, Gellert finally sunk onto the—quite uncomfortable, if truth be told—wooden bench, staring out into the endless, churning fog that lingered over the graves in the cemetery.

"Funny, isn't it?" Albus stared off into the fog, but Gellert knew that what he was really seeing were pictures of the past. "After how hard we fought to escape it, we still end up here."

Funny was the last thing Gellert would use to describe the situation, and he harrumphed as he folded his arms, certain that Albus would understand the gesture.

"But why _here_ , of all places?"

"Some might say it's because of my twisted sense of humor," said a voice that sounded like destruction and decay. "Those people give me far too much credit."

Gellert leapt to his feet before remembering, for the second time, that he had no wand. What was a wizard without a wand? Might as well be a Muggle, for all the good it was doing him.

A shadowy figure appeared among the fog, and a tattered, black robe gradually emerged as if it was born out of the nothingness on the other side of the mist. Death. It had to be. Though Gellert had never met him, he had heard enough stories to assume.

"Not that I don't love a good bit of irony," Death continued as he advanced towards them. The whisper of cloth against bone sounded oddly like the lament of cursed souls—or maybe Gellert was imagining it? "But I don't make Limbo. You do. Your Limbo is a place that meant something to you during your life."

Gellert wanted to argue that the dingy hollow meant as little to him now as it had when he escaped it nearly a century ago, but he swallowed his words. It hardly seemed like the time.

"So how is it that we escape this garish wasteland?" he asked instead.

"You don't. Not on your own, anyway. You have to play by my rules, which means there's only one way out. You have to confess your greatest mistake from your life, the one that ultimately led you here."

"I have no great mistakes." Gellert scoffed and glanced at Albus, whose normally clear eyes were clouded by thought.

"Really? Not one? You spent half your life locked in a prison of your own design."

"Fine. So my mistake was losing the duel that cost me my freedom."

"Yes, it was. But that is far from your greatest mistake." There was a soft clicking of bone as he reached into his robe and pulled what looked like a time-turner from around his neck. "You will remain here until you figure it out, however long that takes. Can't have you moving on just yet, as ignorant as you are."

"Ignorant? I'll have you know—"

"Enough!" Death's voice reverberated around the hollow like a gunshot, and Gellert let his words trail off there. Being that they were at his mercy, it didn't seem like a good idea to anger him. "While I'd love to sit here and listen to your excuses—because it's certainly not like I've heard them all a thousand times before—I have other things to do. I'll be back when you've figured it out."

With a _whoosh,_ he was gone, and a stillness settled over Godric's Hollow. They were alone, the only two people in this world.

Gellert glanced to Albus, who was popping a lemon sherbet in his mouth. Gellert got the impression that this wasn't his first time encountering Death or hearing the speech, which made sense given that there was nearly a year between their deaths.

"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" he asked.

"I think we can make it."

Gellert grunted and sat down on the bench, looking across into the graveyard. Of course he did. Albus had always been the sort to believe in the most ridiculous, illogical things. Just this once, Gellert hoped he wasn't wrong. Godric's Hollow was the last place he wanted to end up for all eternity, and there was no doubt in his mind that Albus felt the same.

 **...oOo...**

Gellert tucked his hands behind his head as he rested his legs on the bench, tapping his feet together to an imaginary rhythm. The longer they stayed, the more real Godric's Hollow felt. The fog had almost completely dissipated, leaving him staring up into clear, blue skies. Still, that did little to quell his discomfort.

"We've already gone over all of the obvious mistakes," he sighed, glancing briefly at the red-head sitting in the grass next to him who had his back pressed against the seat of the bench. "My tactics were rubbish, my planning a bit sloppy, and my follow-through quite lacking.

"Not to mention ending up in Nurmengard," Albus added, idly plucking apart a wildflower as he spoke.

"And yet you still felt the need to mention it. But we've been over that, too. On both our parts." Gellert paused a moment before continuing, "For what it's worth, I forgive you for your part in—"

"And I for yours."

"I suppose we were both acting according to what we imagined would be for the greater good."

"Yes, I suppose so."

An awkward silence lapsed between them. How long had they been at these discussions already? It was always day here and there were no clocks, which meant there was no real way to mark the passing time—nothing except the tedium and monotony, anyway, but that wasn't a true measurement.

"What does that leave?" Gellert muttered to himself, chewing the inside of his cheek as his mind mulled over the possibilities.

"My biggest mistake..." Albus began, but he let the thought die there. When he glanced over, Gellert could see the turmoil writhing in the blue eyes as they locked on to the wildflower he was twirling in his hand, watching it but not seeing it. "My biggest mistake was not being more attentive. If I had...if I had thought for a second about anyone other than myself...if I had stopped to consider the consequences...it's my fault that Ariana died."

"It's _our_ fault that Ariana died. You were not alone in being young and foolish. It's not a burden you bear alone."

Albus glanced his way, but Gellert returned his gaze to the azure skies. The familiar guilt pressed against his chest, suffocating him, and he sat up hoping to alleviate it. Nothing worked. It was something that had tortured his mind all those years trapped in a tower with nothing to keep him company but his thoughts. Even at sixteen, he was not unfamiliar to loss, but he had lost more than he cared to admit that day.

"Yes, that was a rather large, tragic mistake," Gellert admitted, standing to stretch his tired muscles. He pushed the emotions back down, into the background where it was easy to pretend they didn't exist, as he changed the subject. "Hardly the biggest mistake you've made, though."

"Oh?" Albus looked sideways at him, and Gellert smiled. It was the same look he used to get when they were teenagers debating the future, and following it, he would always prove Albus wrong. Well, most of the time. Merlin, the red-head could be pig-headed when he wanted to be.

"Dare I say a bigger mistake was not taking care of that Riddle boy when you could have."

"When I could have? You mean as a child in an orphanage?" Albus studied him carefully, letting his flower fall back into the grass.

"Yes, as a child, if need be. At ten or eleven or fifteen or even seventeen, if it suited you. All those opportunities, wasted. You should have seen it then, but you always were a bit blind to the future."

"Forgive me," Albus clenched his jaw as he stood and brushed the grass from his robes, "if I do not possess your same enthusiasm for killing."

"Killing when it's _necessary_!" Gellert could feel a familiar throbbing building behind his eyes, but he did his best to ignore it. "I took only the lives that were necessary to reach my objectives. I built a _prison—_ a rather nice one, given the circumstances—to house objectors rather than blindly killing. Sometimes people have to die to enact change. It's unavoidable."

"Only because you made it so! Always so quick to violence, Gellert."

"Always so afraid of it, Albus! And look where it got you. You let a narcissistic, egotistical, worthless brat rampage through the wizarding world. How many lives did your reluctance to act cost? Or do you feign innocence simply because you weren't the one casting the killing curse?"

Albus remained quiet, fists clenched at his side, and Gellert could see the hurt flash in his eyes. He should be used to it by now. This was far from the first time they had argued, and he was certain it wouldn't be the last.

"You're right," Albus whispered. "I hesitated twice, unwilling to do what was necessary to stop a Dark Wizard from coming to power. I was mistaken both times."

Pangs of guilt clawed their way back to the surface, and Gellert couldn't quell them as easily this time. How had things gone so awry? From dreaming of taking on the world together to being enemies, that was the course of their lives. The Albus he had known last time he was in Godric's Hollow—the _real_ Godric's Hollow—understood the cause and believed in it. Believed in _him_.

Gellert walked away from the bench shaking his head. Somewhere down the line, Albus had become little more than a stranger to him. How could they be expected to know what their greatest mistake was when they didn't even know each other?

 **...oOo...**

Gellert laid his hand on the trunk of the large tree that kept vigil in the back of the graveyard. The leaves were changing colors, and a light breeze shook the dead ones from the branches. The leaves had changed twice since they first got there, but that didn't mean much. There was no winter there, no summer, and no true fall. It was like the trees were simply going through the motions because they knew no other way.

"Do you remember this place like I do?" Albus asked as he approached, stopping a couple meters away.

"Like you do? No, I think not."

Gellert's eyes drifted to the topmost branches, vaulting for their freedom against the endless sky. How many days had they spent laying head-to-head, staring up at the tree, imagining the very same thing for themselves? The graveyard was where they had shared their hearts, their souls. Everything about themselves, proffered up to the night with the reassurance that the dead would keep their secrets.

"But I do remember," he added softly.

Gellert turned and, with a sigh, slid down the trunk, bark scraping against his robes. They had gone through everything, it seemed. From blatant mistakes to subjective mistakes, ones that he was reluctant to admit were wrong. Where he felt something was justified, Albus thought the contrary, and vice versa. Still, it had gotten them nowhere.

Albus sat down next to him, stretching his legs out along the grass and leaning back into his palms. After a minute, he reached into his robes.

"Lemon sherbet?"

"Why not? There isn't much else to do." Gellert popped the candy into his mouth, rolling it around on his tongue a few times before spitting it into the grass. "Still just as disgusting as I remember them."

"You always did have a bit of an odd taste."

"Me? Really? Do you not see what you have on?"

Albus glanced at Gellert blankly, as if he couldn't fathom what could possibly be wrong with his purple robes, decorated with silver swirls. No, he probably couldn't. Merlin, what was wrong with him?

"It was simpler back then, wasn't it?" Albus lifted one knee and rested his arm on it as he spoke. "Before there was such a thing as Light and Dark. Before we really knew of the world. Before we made all our mistakes...and there _were_ a lot of them."

Gellert laughed at the absurdity of it all, at the glaring understatement of that sentence, at the sheer idea that, even after everything, they were still stuck in Limbo. They had 115 years of mistakes to sort through—230 years between them.

"Before..." Gellert muttered. Their time in Godric's Hollow seemed so far away, like a dream fading into morning's light. It was before, even, they knew who they were themselves, and if things had gone differently...

"I should never have left," Gellert said as realization began to dawn on him. "I should have stayed. Above everything else, I should have chosen you."

"We should have chosen each other," Albus corrected.

"It took you a lot longer to figure it out than I expected." Gellert jumped at the voice. It felt like eternity since they had last heard that echoing wheeze. Death stepped around the tree, stopping in front of them. "Chaos, if you're the brightest wizards of your age, then clearly that's two centuries that are completely wasted for talent."

"All this...just so we could learn _that_? That's it?"

Gellert scoffed as he stood, offering a hand to Albus and pulling him to his feet, as well.

"Well, if you had figured it out a century ago, we wouldn't have had to go through all this, would we? But I'm an immortal of my word, so are you ready to go?"

"Leave here?" Albus asked, and Gellert noted the soft incredulity in his tone, as if he never imagined it was possible.

"Or would you prefer to stay?"

"Merlin, no," Gellert interrupted. "Get us out of here."

Death slipped his hand out and began to trace runes in the air with the phalanx of his pointer finger, leaving behind a burning trail wherever it went. He stepped back, and the rune scorched the air for a moment longer before fading into a shimmering, translucent portal.

"What, uh, what's on the other side?" Albus asked as they stepped in front of the small break in space and time.

"You know," bone clicked against bone as Death tapped his chin lightly, "I don't have a clue. Can't be worse than this, can it?"

"If I end up back in Bulgaria, I swear—"

"Relax. Wherever it is you end up, you'll be together, at the very least. Isn't that the most important thing?"

Not hardly. Gellert had no intention of ending up back in Nurmengard with or without Albus by his side.

"Together?" Albus asked, stepping up next to him so they were shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Together," Gellert agreed, drawing a deep breath.

They took the step simultaneously. The last thing Gellert remembered was the pounding of his heart in his ears.

* * *

 **Prompts:**

 **The Quidditch Pitch:** (word) heartbeat

 **Drabble Club:** (quote) "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest." ~ Confucius

 **QLFC:** Pick one line from the lyrics of your song. Song: "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Elton John. Line: "I think we can make it."


End file.
